646f9e108c When a millionaires valet is murdered he hires a detective to discover by who and why his valet was killed, leading to connections of the nazi sort! Producer Towers was very big on stories in which people are picked off, one after the other. (He produced screen versions of Agatha Christie's "Ten Little Indians" three times!) While this film isn't exactly in the same vein, it does feature,part of its plot line, five men who are connected by an event during the war being killed, one at a time (the first one being during the war.) Former "Tarzan" Barker plays a hired detective, placed in charge by Rilla of finding out who is behind the slayings before Rilla's turn comes about. As he pokes around South Africa trying to uncover the killer's identity, he is allied with a local police inspector (Fraser) and distracted by two very curvy and very big-haired ladies. Smyrner is Rilla's blonde, Danish assistant and Vendell is his brunette adoptive daughter. Barker is unable to figure out the mystery or to keep the body count at bay until all is revealed at the end in a fairly surprising finale. Barker is still fit and unbelievably tan here, though obviously older than when he swung from the vines and cavorted with his one-time wife Lana Turner. He gives a decent performance, doing a large amount of his own stunts and only looking awkward or in any way foolish when he is mired in some tentative love scenes with the ladies. It's asking a lot of the audience to believe that Fraser is the "chick magnet" that he's portrayed to be here. There's nothing wrong with his acting, but that aspect of his character is ludicrous with Fraser in the role unless he has about 12 undisclosed secrets no one knows about. Smyrner is pretty weak. Her lines (like many peoples' in this international cast) aren't always completely discernible and she's content to smile prettily rather than display any significant emotion in her scenes. Vendell has the spicier role, though she's not exactly amazing either. Both gals show off some serious curves (and use enough hairspray that they should have their own ozone hole named after them!) The setting of Capetown is amply exploited with some really interesting locations and varieties of terrain. There doesn't appear to be much, if any, rear projection here. The cinematography (by no less than Nicholas Roeg!) manages to capture the local color in a reasonably captivating way, especially in a vertigo-inducing scene atop a jagged cliff. The music has a bouncy, swingy feel to it that may annoymany viewersit pleases, depending on one's taste. In this relatively tame film, there is one awfully bloody death scene that also includes an actor mumbling a long stream of last words that, unfortunately, reveal aspects of the plot, but good luck understanding him! The revelation of the killer is, thankfully, a bit less obvious than it seemsif it's going to be and that helps make the film better that it could have been. As it stands, it's a so-so mystery whose chief assets are the strong arms and sun-kissed smile of Barker and the interesting location work. CODE 7, VICTIM 5 is now available in a cheap DVD, and for a few dollars (mine cost $3 US), it's passable entertainment, mostly for the presence of Lex Barkerprivate eye "Steve Martin" (same nameRaymond Burr's character in GODZILLA). This is a typical Harry Alan Towers production–find an out-of-the-way country where the pound/dollar goes a long way and without powerful unions, hire a lot of locals in small roles, use a lot of free locations to give the film "color," have Towers himself pen a by-the-numbers script over dinner or during a flight. South Africa photographs well (the film was shot by Nicholas Roeg, so it's no surprise), and is so unfamiliar to this American that the background almost becomes a character. The plot is the standard "someone is killing off one by one the members of a group from a previous time" and ex-Nazis are even dragged in. Ronald Fraser (best known in the USA for FATHOM, with Raquel Welch and the late great Tony Franciosa) does a good jobthe local police inspector who finds jet-setting detective Barker to be a bit of a pest, but eventually realizes Barker's honesty and professionalism–Fraser and Barker are the perfect foils for each other. Nothing special here–probably of interest mostly to the Barker fan (or those who want a quick three-dollar travelogue of South Africa).
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370 weeks ago